The following is a press release from Senator John Cornyn’s (R-TX) office issued today:‘The Minority Leader in particular has spent a considerable amount of time on the floor stressing how dire the need is to fund Zika prevention efforts. He and the rest of his caucus will have a clear choice: they can either play politics at the expense of the mothers and the children across the country, or they can simply decide to do the right thing and support the bipartisan Zika bill.’
WASHINGTON – Today on the Senate floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) discussed the need to pass bipartisan legislation that will help fund efforts to combat the Zika virus, urging Democrats not to filibuster the bill. Excerpts of his remarks are below, and video can be found here.
“Over the past few weeks, our Democratic friends have repeatedly stressed the urgency of this matter. And of course, with the summer months coming, they’re likely to bring us more mosquitoes, which of course is the primary vector that carries this virus.”
“If we could pay for it, that would be ideal, but I think everybody agrees that we need to get moving quickly to protect our communities, and of course, the most vulnerable people for the Zika virus are women of child-bearing age.”
So it’s surprising now to hear some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say that they actually plan to filibuster this legislation, and the President, apparently, is indicating he might veto it.”
“We need to make sure that the doctors and the researchers and the other public health officials on the front lines get the resources they need.”
“For the President and some of our colleagues who have been insistent that we act on this now to say well, we’re going to filibuster it or that the President will actually veto it is really pretty hard to get your head around. Unless, of course, you conclude that it’s completely disingenuous and irresponsible.”
“I hope that, as I said, cooler heads will prevail and our colleagues will vote to support it, so we can quickly get the urgent resources needed to those public health officials who are studying the virus, working on prevention, including mosquito eradication which is an important part of this, as well as creating a vaccine.”
“The Minority Leader in particular has spent a considerable amount of time on the floor stressing how dire the need is to fund Zika prevention efforts. He and the rest of his caucus will have a clear choice: they can either play politics at the expense of the mothers and the children across the country, or they can simply decide to do the right thing and support the bipartisan Zika bill.”
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